Unconstitutional Entanglements

Transcription

Yale Journal of Law & Feminism
Volume 19
Issue 2 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism
Article 6
2007
Unconstitutional Entanglements: The Religious
Right, the Federal Government, and Abstinence
Education in the Schools
Naomi Rivkind Shatz
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Shatz, Naomi Rivkind (2007) "Unconstitutional Entanglements: The Religious Right, the Federal Government, and Abstinence
Education in the Schools," Yale Journal of Law & Feminism: Vol. 19: Iss. 2, Article 6.
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Unconstitutional Entanglements:
The Religious Right, the Federal Government,
and Abstinence Education in the Schools
Naomi Rivkind Shatzf
IN TRO D UCTIO N ................................................................................................
I. ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE JURISPRUDENCE .................................................
496
498
A. The History of the Establishment Clause in the Supreme Court ... 499
B. The Establishment Clause and School Curricula Cases ................. 502
1. The Creationism and Intelligent Design Cases ....................... 503
2. Establishment Clause Challenges to Abstinence-Only
E du cation ...............................................................................
504
II. ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEXUALITY EDUCATION ............................................
507
A. Federal Funding for Abstinence-Only Education Programs .......... 509
1. Federal Funding Statutes .........................................................
510
2. Recipients of Abstinence-Only Funding ................................. 513
B . Abstinence-O nly Curricula ............................................................
514
C. Impact and Outcomes of Abstinence Education ............................ 517
III. THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS ................ 520
A. There is No Secular Purpose to Abstinence-Only Education ........ 520
1. Abstinence Education Does Not Affect Adolescents'
Sexual Practices .....................................................................
522
2. Abstinence-Only Education Is the Product of a Christian
Political M ovem ent ................................................................
523
B. Premarital Abstinence Itself Is a Specific Religious Value ............ 524
1. Individual Curricula Continue To Promote Religion .............. 526
2. Extramarital Abstinence Is Itself a Religious Value ............... 527
C O N C LUSIO N ................................................................................................... 530
t
Yale Law School, J.D. expected 2008; Barnard College, B.A. 2004. 1 would like to thank Anthony
Kronman, Steven Shatz, and Julie Kay for their helpful thoughts on drafts of this Comment. I would also
like to thank Rebecca Engel and Elizabeth Simpson for their excellent editing, and the staff of the Yale
Journal of Law and Feminism for its work in preparing this Comment for publication. Lastly, 1 would
like to thank my family and Ryan Cauley for their continuing and invaluable support.
Copyright 0 2008 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism
Yale Journal of Law and Feminism
[Vol. 19:495
My job is not to keep teenagersfrom having sex.... Ourjob should be
to tell kids the truth! ...I don't care ifit works, because at the end of
the day I'm not answering to you, I'm answering to God!
Pam Stenzel, abstinence educator1
INTRODUCTION
The movement for sex education in the United States began in 1914 with
the founding of the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA). 2 The
Progressive Era, much like the sexual revolution of the 1960s, was a time of
increased sex outside of marriage, declining marriage rates, and rising divorce
rates. 3 In response to these perceived social ills, the founders of the first sex
education movement set out to attack the manifestations of this social and
cultural change, such as prostitution, the spread of venereal diseases, and the
sexual exploitation of women. 4 The social hygienists' solution was to educate
Americans about "wholesome sex within marriage." 5 For the first forty years of
sex education, then, the focus was on supporting marriage and family, broadly
construed. 6 But with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, sex education changed.
The second sex education movement started in 1964 with the founding of
the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States
(SIECUS). The goal of this new movement was not to discourage sex outside
7
of marriage, but to protect sexual rights and to make sex safer and healthier.
This version of sex education did not receive the widespread support that the
social hygiene movement did. Across the country concerned parents and
conservative (often religious) organizations banded together to protest sex
education in the schools. 8 The anti-sex education movement quickly stirred up
public sentiment with allegations that in sex education classes students had
intercourse in front of the class, that a teacher had removed her clothes to show
students the female body, 9 and that sex education was a Communist plot to
0
overthrow America.'
1. MICHELLE GOLDBERG, KINGDOM COMING 135-36 (2006).
2. KRISTIN LUKER, WHEN SEX GOES TO SCHOOL 38 (2006); see also American Social Health
Association, ASHA Milestones, http://www.ashastd.org/about/about-milestones.cfm (last visited Aug.
30, 2007).
3. LUKER, supra note 2, at 46-52.
4. Seeid. at 41-44.
5. Id. at 53.
6. Id. at 60-62.
7. See LUKER, supra note 2, at 84-85; SIECUS, About Us, http://www.siecus.org/about/index.html
(last visited Aug. 30, 2007).
8. See WILLIAM MARTIN, WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE 100-43 (1996) (looking at sex education fights
in Anaheim, California and textbooks and culture wars in West Virginia and Texas).
9. Id. at 110-11.
10. CLYDE WILCOX, GOD'S WARRIORS 9-10 (1992).
2008]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the anti-sex education movement moved
away from fighting against sex education in the schools, and instead developed
its own alternative: abstinence-only education. As the name indicates,
abstinence-only education teaches that abstinence outside of marriage is the
only acceptable behavioral option for all people, and does not teach students
about contraception. It first came to national attention in 1981, when Senator
Jeremiah Denton advocated for a law that would fund the teaching of
abstinence in schools and community programs."I This so-called "chastity
bill"' 2 legitimized the abstinence education movement, and marked the
beginning of a new era in the struggle over adolescent sexuality.
The continuing debate over sex education is currently being played out in
school districts, state legislatures, and the federal government. Critics of
abstinence education argue that it is ineffective in preventing teens from having
14
sex, 13 that it teaches students inaccurate scientific and medical information,
and that it promotes homophobia and harmful gender stereotypes.15 In addition,
other critics have argued that some abstinence-only programs violate the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This Comment will demonstrate
the broader constitutional problem with abstinence education: it is not merely,
as previous scholars and litigators have argued, that certain curricula contain
overtly religious teachings or that religious groups use abstinence funds to
proselytize to students. Rather, the ideological nature of abstinence-only
education pervades even the federal statute defining funding eligibility. The
federal definition of abstinence, which all states and groups who receive
funding must teach, offers a unique view of "permissible" sex that is, itself, a
religious view of human sexuality. Unlike authors who have argued that the
religious terminology of certain curricula may violate the Establishment
Clause,' 6 I argue that the very foundation of abstinence-only policy is
unconstitutional, and that it can only be remedied by a complete overhaul of the
federal abstinence-only education system.
Part I of this Comment gives an overview of the history of Establishment
Clause jurisprudence and the cases that have challenged school curricula and
abstinence education as violating the Establishment Clause. Part II offers a
11. See infra Subsection ll.A.I..
12. JUDITH LEVINE, HARMFUL TO MINORS 90 (2002).
13. See infra Subsection I.A.l.
14. Id.
15. Legal
Momentum,
Abstinence-Only
Programs:
Harmful
to Women and Girls,
http://Iegalmomentum.org/legalmomentum/programs/sexualityandfamilyrights/abstinenceonly-program
s_harmful_towomengirls/ (last visited Aug. 30, 2007).
16. See, e.g.,
Naomi K. Seiler, Abstinence-Only Education and Privacy, 24 WOMEN'S RTS. L. REP.
27, 32-33 (2002) (stating that abstinence programs may constitute official endorsement of religion if they
contain specific religious teaching); Gary J. Simson & Erika A. Sussman, Keeping the Sex in Sex
Education: The First Amendment's Religion Clauses and the Sex Education Debate, 9 S. CAL. REV. L.
& WOMEN'S STUD. 265, 284 (2000) (claiming that abstinence-only programs are rooted in religious
doctrine).
[Vol. 19:495
description of abstinence-only education, the current federal laws funding it,
and empirical studies of its effectiveness. Part III analyzes the constitutionality
of abstinence-only education, focusing on two factors that have been largely
ignored in challenges to abstinence-only education under the Establishment
programs, and the religious nature
Clause: the lack of a secular purpose to these
17
of the very message of abstinence itself.
I.
ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE JURISPRUDENCE
The Establishment Clause is one of the shortest yet most contentious
clauses in the Bill of Rights, stating simply that "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion."' 18 The Supreme Court's Establishment
Clause jurisprudence dates from 1940, but for half a century the Supreme Court
has struggled to develop a single, clear test for the interpretation of the clause.
This confusion has led some scholars to argue that "[t]he Supreme Court's test
for deciding whether a law oversteps the bounds of the First Amendment[]...
has been in a considerable state of flux"' 19 and caused one federal judge to call
20
the current Establishment Clause jurisprudence "a vast, perplexing desert."
Although scholars disagree as to the current state of Establishment Clause
17. The Supreme Court recently addressed the question of who has standing to sue the federal
government for Establishment Clause violations in Hein v. Freedomfrom Religion Foundation, 127 S.
Ct. 2553 (2007). While the question of standing to sue the government for funding abstinence-only
programs is beyond the scope of this Comment, the Court's decision in Hein does not preclude
challenges to abstinence-only education. In Hein the Court revisited its decision in Flast v. Cohen, 392
U.S. 83 (1968), which held that a plaintiff has standing to challenge a law authorizing the use of federal
funds in a way that violates the Establishment Clause. In Hein the Court emphasized that it was the link
between a specific congressional act and the allegedly unconstitutional use of government funds that
gave the plaintiffs in Flast standing to sue, a link that did not exist in Hein where the funds came from
general executive branch appropriations. 127 S. Ct. at 2566. As will be illustrated below, funding of
abstinence-only education occurs pursuant to congressional legislation and congressional appropriations,
and thus remains open to challenge after Hein. Indeed, in Hein the Court noted that challenges to
abstinence education funding have been brought against the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA), one of
the three statutes authorizing funding for abstinence-only education. The Court stated that challenges to
the AFLA fall under the Flast standing exemption because the AFLA is "'at heart a program of
disbursement of funds pursuant to Congress' taxing and spending powers ... ' Hein, 127 S. Ct. at
2567 (quoting Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 619-20 (1988)).
18. U.S. CONST. amend. I.
19. Simson & Sussman, supra note 16, at 283; see also Adam M. Conrad, Hanging the Ten
Commandments on the Wall Separating Church and State: Toward a New Establishment Clause
Jurisprudence, 38 GA. L. REV. 1329, 1340 (2004) ("[T]he court has resorted to using Lemon almost
haphazardly."); Julie Jones, Money, Sex, and the Religious Right: A ConstitutionalAnalysis of Federally
Funded Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Sexuality Education, 35 CREIGHTON L. REV. 1075, 1086
(2002) ("Supreme Court jurisprudence in this area could not be much more confusing and disjunctive
than it already is."); Christal L. Hoo, Comment, Thou Shalt Not Publicly Display the Ten
Commandments: A Callfor a Reevaluation of Current Establishment Clause Jurisprudence,109 PENN.
ST. L. REV. 683, 683 (2004) ("Current Establishment Clause jurisprudence provides little, if any, clear
").
guidance for lower courts ....
20. Helms v. Picard, 151 F.3d 347, 350 (5th Cir. 1998).
2008]
jurisprudence, the Court continues to use variations of the multipart test
established in Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971.21
A. The History of the Establishment Clause in the Supreme Court
Despite the well-established idea of a separation between church and state
in American law, the Supreme Court has only decided seventy cases on
Establishment Clause grounds. 22 Few cases were decided under the
Establishment Clause before the First Amendment was made applicable to
23
states through the Fourteenth Amendment in 1940.
The first modem
Establishment Clause case, Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township,
held that the Establishment Clause meant that "[n]either [a state nor the federal
government] can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer
one religion over another." 24 In deciding whether New Jersey could use
taxpayer money to provide school busing for children attending Catholic
schools, the Court weighed the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause
in a balancing test. 25 The Court found that the Establishment Clause requires
states to be neutral in their treatment of religious and non-religious groups:
because New Jersey provided busing services to all schools, the policy did not
violate the Establishment Clause.26
The Supreme Court provided the foundation for its current Establishment
Clause jurisprudence in Lemon v. Kurtzman,27 which addressed whether a state
could fund church-related schools to teach non-religious subjects. The Lemon
Court built upon its decision in Walz v. Tax Commission,28 where it stated that
the "three main evils against which the Establishment Clause was intended to
afford protection [are]: 'sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement
of the sovereign in religious activity.' 29 In Lemon, the Court for the first time
enunciated a multifactor test for determining whether a law conforms with the
Establishment Clause: the law must have a secular purpose, its primary effect
must not be to advance or inhibit religion, and it must not foster an excessive
entanglement between government and religion. In applying the test to the
facts of the case, the Court found that the two statutes in question fostered
excessive entanglement between church and state-both by giving aid directly
21. 403 U.S. 602, 612-13 (1971).
22. Mark David Hall, Disentangling Church and State: Have the Courts Done Enough?, 85 OR. L.
REV. 563, 565-66 (2006).
23. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 (1940).
24. 330 U.S. 1, 15 (1947).
25. Id. at 16.
26. Id. at 17-18.
27. 403 U.S. 602 (1971).
28. 397 U.S. 664 (1970).
29. 403 U.S. at 612 (quoting Walz, 397 U.S. at 668).
30. Id. at 612-13.
[Vol. 19:495
to schools with strictly religious purposes, and because the state would have to
monitor teachers to ensure that their instruction was purely secular.3 While
later Justices have criticized the test and offered their own Establishment
Clause tests, the Lemon test remains the primary method of determining the
constitutionality of government acts that may involve religion.
In a 1984 concurring opinion, Justice O'Connor advocated a different
approach to the Lemon test. She advocated focusing on governmental
"endorsement" of religion. 32 The endorsement test asks the court to determine
"what message a challenged governmental policy or enactment conveys to a
reasonable, objective observer who knows... the history of the community
and the broader social and historical context in which the policy arose." 33 This
test was adopted by the majority five years later in County of Allegheny v.
ACL U.3 4 The ACLU had challenged the display of a creche in the Allegheny
County Courthouse and a menorah outside the City-County Building in
Pittsburgh, arguing that the displays constituted an endorsement of religious
beliefs. The Court found that the display of the creche did constitute a
governmental endorsement of Christian beliefs because the creche contained a
sign that stated "Glory to God in the Highest!" and because it stood alone, not
as a part of a more secularized holiday display. 35 The display that contained the
menorah, however, was deemed not to constitute an endorsement of religion
because it also had a Christmas tree. The Court found the tree to be a symbol of
the secular aspects of Christmas, and thus chose to interpret the menorah to
represent the secular, rather than the religious, aspects of Chanukah.36 This case
validated the endorsement test as a legitimate alternative to, or interpretation of,
the Lemon test.
Almost a decade later, in Agostini v. Felton,37 the Court overturned Aguilar
v. Felton,38 which had barred New York from sending public school teachers
into parochial schools to provide remedial education for students. The Court
explained that two key assumptions in the Aguilar decision had since been
abandoned-the presumption that placing state employees in parochial schools
necessarily constitutes indoctrination or excessive entanglement, and the idea
31. Id. at 617-19.
32. Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 689 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring) ("Focusing on
institutional entanglement and on endorsement or disapproval of religion clarifies the Lemon test as an
analytical device."); see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 69 (1985) (O'Connor, J., concurring)
("The endorsement test is useful because of the analytic content itgives to the Lemon-mandated inquiry
into the legislative purpose and effect.").
33. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707, 714-15 (M.D. Pa. 2005).
34. 492 U.S. 573, 592 (1989) ("In recent years, we have paid particularly close attention to whether
the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of 'endorsing' religion, a concern
that has long had a place in our Establishment Clause jurisprudence.").
35. Id. at 601-02.
36. Id. at 617-20.
37. 521 U.S. 203, 222-23 (1997).
38. 473 U.S. 402 (1985).
2008]
that all government aid to parochial schools is impermissible. Writing for the
Court, Justice O'Connor explicitly stated that the third prong of the Lemon test
(whether the statute fostered excessive entanglement between church and state)
should be seen as simply a component of the second prong-an inquiry into the
effects of the statute. 39 Under this modified version of the Lemon test, a
governmental act is impermissible if its purpose is to advance or inhibit
religion, or if it has an impermissible effect.
In MeCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, the Court expressly declined to
abolish the Lemon test, finding that when a county erected a Ten
Commandments statute with the purpose of advancing religion, its actions
violated the Establishment Clause. 40 The Court emphasized the importance of
Lemon's inquiry into purpose, noting that it is both a "staple of statutory
inquiry" and plays a practical role when the "objective emerges from readily
41
discoverable fact.
The court has found the Lemon test inapplicable in limited situations when
longstanding historical practices-and the absence of any expression of
preference for one religion over another-have sanctioned a practice. In Marsh
v. Chambers,42 the Court ignored the Lemon test and instead used a historical
analysis to determine whether opening legislative sessions with prayer violated
the Establishment Clause. The Court found that, because legislative prayer has
become an integral part of our society, and because the founding fathers did not
view legislative prayers as violating the Establishment Clause, the practice was
not a threat to the separation of church and state. 43 In Van Orden v. Perry,44 the
Court solidified its adoption of the endorsement test in a case challenging
Texas's placement of a monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds
of the state capitol. The Court held that the Lemon test was not useful in
addressing the "passive monument" that Texas had erected.45 The Court found
that the Ten Commandments have a historical and legal significance in addition
to their religious connotation, and therefore, that the monument did not violate
the First Amendment. While Van Orden seems to take the opposite position
from McCreary on the continued usefulness of the Lemon test, in both cases the
Court found that the context in which the allegedly prohibited action occurred
was crucial in determining whether the action or statute had a secular
purpose. 46
39. 521 U.S. at 233 ("Thus, it is simplest to recognize why entanglement is significant and treat
it-as we did in Walz-as an aspect of the inquiry into a statute's effect.").
40. 545 U.S. 844, 861-67 (2005).
41. Id. at 861-62.
42. 463 U.S. 783 (1983).
43. Id. at 792.
44. 545 U.S. 677 (2005).
45. Id. at 686.
46. Id. at 691 (considering the context in which the Ten Commandments monument appeared and
stating, "Texas has treated its Capitol grounds monuments as representing the several strands in the
[Vol. 19:495
All of the Court's new "tests" still address the core concerns of the Lemon
Court, and can be seen as reinterpretations of the three prongs of the Lemon
test. While the Court has criticized the Lemon test, it has yet to enunciate a
single new test, and it continues to use the Lemon criteria as the foundation of
its various analyses. Thus, while the Court may sometimes state that it is not
relying on the Lemon test, Supreme Court Establishment Clause jurisprudence
still relies on the basic questions of what the purpose of the statute is and what
its effects are.
B. The Establishment Clause and School CurriculaCases
Although there have been few Establishment Clause cases challenging
abstinence-only education, for the past forty years the courts have been
addressing Establishment Clause challenges to school curricula in the context
of the teaching of evolution. The similarities between the evolution issue and
abstinence are clear-both involve public school classes that have a factual
scientific component in which there are competing curricula (one based on
scientific fact, and another based at least in part on religious, moral, or ethical
beliefs).
The Court has always been particularly strict with potential Establishment
Clause violations in the schools, explicitly stating that otherwise permissible
actions may violate the First Amendment if they are conducted in a classroom.
For example, in Van Orden v. Perry, the Court noted that while it was
constitutional for Texas to erect a statue of the Ten Commandments on the
grounds of the capitol, it had previously held that states could not post the Ten
Commandments in the classroom.4 7 Similarly, the Court has allowed prayer in
the state legislature48 but prohibited it in school contexts.4 9 In the Court's own
words, "[We have] been particularly vigilant in monitoring compliance with the
Establishment Clause in elementary and secondary schools. ' 50 For this reason,
the intelligent design cases provide a useful template for addressing
Establishment Clause questions relating to abstinence education.
State's political and legal history"); McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, 545 U.S. 844, 870 (2005)
(discussing the resolutions the county was required to produce in order to explain the purpose of the
display in question, and finding that "[tlogether, the display and resolution presented an indisputable,
and undisputed, showing of an impermissible purpose").
47. 545U.S.at691.
48. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983).
49. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992).
50. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 583-84 (1987).
2008]
1. The Creationismand Intelligent Design Cases
In Epperson v. Arkansas,51 the Supreme Court invalidated an Arkansas
statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools, relying on its
previous cases addressing school curricula. The Court held that the Arkansas
law was based on a desire to uphold a particular religious view of the origins of
human life and that the First Amendment does not allow states to require that
teaching be "tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or
dogma. 52 The Court further stated that the Arkansas law was not neutral with
respect to religion, because it did not seek to excise all discussions of the
origins of humankind from school curricula but merely to prohibit the teaching
3
of one theory that conflicted with the Biblical account of the origins of man.
In Edwards v. Aguillard,5 4 the Supreme Court found unconstitutional a
Louisiana statute that required schools to give equal treatment to creationism
and evolution. The statute did not require that either subject be taught, but if
one was taught, the other was also required. The district court held that there
was no valid secular reason for prohibiting the teaching of evolution, and that
the teaching of creationism was "'tailored to the principles' of a particular
religious sect.' 55 The Court affirmed the decisions of the district and appellate
courts, finding that the statute violated the first prong of the Lemon test because
it lacked a secular purpose. In finding no secular purpose, the Court also
recognized the historic antagonism between certain religious teachings and the
teaching of evolution. The Court concluded that the intent of the Louisiana
Legislature had been to advance the religious view that a supernatural force
56
created humankind, as stated in the Bible.
Recently, two district court cases have extended the reasoning used in the
creationism cases to instances in which evolution has been portrayed as only
one of various theories of creation. In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School
District,57 the district court struck down a school board resolution requiring
students to be made aware of "gaps" in Darwin's theory of evolution and to be
taught other theories of evolution, including intelligent design. After reviewing
the history of the intelligent design movement, the Kitzmiller court, relying on
the endorsement test, found that a reasonable observer would understand that a
discussion of intelligent design and gaps in Darwinian theory were religious
ideas that emerged from creationist ideas. 58 The court also found that an
objective student would view the discussion of intelligent design as an official
51.
52.
53.
54.
393 U.S. 97(1968).
Id. at 106.
Id. at 109.
482 U.S. 578 (1987).
55. Aguillard v. Treen, 634 F. Supp. 426, 427 (E.D. La. 1985).
56. 482 U.S. at 591.
57. 400 F. Supp. 2d 707, 708 (M.D. Pa. 2005).
58. Id. at 716-23.
[Vol. 19:495
endorsement of religion. Lastly, the court found that intelligent design was not
science, and thus should not be posited as a scientific alternative to Darwinian
theory in high school biology classes. 59 In addition to its endorsement inquiry,
the court examined whether the school board policy violated the Lemon test,
and found that the board had adopted the resolution with a religious objective,
60
and that the only effect of the policy was to advance religion.
That same year, another court held that a sticker placed in science
textbooks, which stated that evolution is a theory that should be critically
considered, violated the Establishment Clause. 61 The court found that the
sticker did have a secular purpose-to encourage critical thinking-but that it
still failed the Lemon test because it sent a message that favored members of
religious communities who oppose the theory of evolution. 62 In applying the
Lemon effects test, the judge found that a reasonable observer would interpret
the sticker as an endorsement of certain fundamentalist ideas, given the history
63
of debates within school boards on the teaching of creationism and evolution.
Even though intelligent design is not as explicitly religious as creationism,
courts have still found that, given the historical connection between certain
conservative religious groups and the intelligent design movement, a state or
school endorsement of intelligent design indicates its desire to promote a
religious viewpoint. As discussed below, this same relationship is at play in the
battles over abstinence-only and comprehensive sexuality education. States and
school boards who promote abstinence-only education are aligning themselves
with certain conservative Christian groups, and thus are promoting religion.
2. Establishment Clause Challenges to Abstinence-Only Education
There have been relatively few cases challenging abstinence-only
education programs under the Establishment Clause. In 1983, a group of clergy
represented by the ACLU sued the Secretary of Health and Human Services,
64
asserting that, as administered, the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA)
violated the Establishment Clause. 65 The plaintiffs also claimed that, because
the AFLA allowed religious organizations to use government money for the
purpose of counseling and education services, the statute was unconstitutional
on its face. The district court found that although the AFLA had a secular
59. Id. at 745-46.
60. Id. at 763-64 ("To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous.").
61. Selman v. Cobb County Sch. Dist., 390 F. Supp. 2d 1286 (N.D. Ga. 2005), vacated and
remandedfor additionalevidentiary inquiry, 449 F.3d 1320 (11 th Cir. 2006).
62. 390 F. Supp. 2d at 1306.
63. Id. at 1307-08.
64. 42 U.S.C. §§ 300z. The AFLA is the oldest federal funding stream for abstinence education.
See infra Subsection III.A.1.
65. Bowen v. Kendrick, 657 F. Supp. 1547 (D.D.C. 1987), vacated, 487 U.S. 589 (1988).
2008]
purpose, it had the effect of advancing
religion and engendering excessive
66
entanglement between church and state.
The Supreme Court reversed this decision, finding that the AFLA did not,
on its face, violate the First Amendment. 67 The Court found that the AFLA had
a valid secular purpose-"the elimination or reduction of social and economic
problems caused by teenage sexuality, pregnancy, and parenthood. ' 68 The
Court also found that the AFLA did not have the primary effect of advancing
religion, even though its approach to dealing with adolescent pregnancy "may
coincide with the approach taken by certain religions." 69 Lastly, the Court
found that the AFLA did not foster excessive government entanglement by
allowing religious groups to participate in the program. 70 The Court then
looked into the contention that the specific application of the AFLA violated
the Establishment Clause and remanded the case, ordering the district court to
consider whether AFLA aid was being given to "'pervasively sectarian
religious institutions," and whether AFLA aid had been used to fund religious
activities in secular settings. 71 In 1993, the parties reached a settlement
establishing that AFLA-funded programs had to work to eliminate religious
messages from their curricula, as well as to provide medically accurate
72
information.
In 1994, parents in Shreveport, Louisiana sued the local school board,
claiming that the use of the Sex Respect and Facing Reality sex education
curricula violated Louisiana law by disseminating religious ideas. 73 At trial, the
court found that various passages of the curricula violated a Louisiana sex
education statute endorsing abstinence education but prohibiting the teaching of
religious, moral, and ethical beliefs. 74 The appellate court upheld much of the
trial court's decision to strike passages that discussed spirituality and imparted
75
moral judgment on various sexual acts.
66. Id. at 1570.
67. Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589 (1988).
68. Id. at 602.
69. Id. at 605.
70. Id. at 608-11.
71. Id. at 621.
72. Rebekah Saul, Whatever Happened to the Adolescent Family Life Act?, GUTTMACHER REP. ON
PUB. POL'Y, Apr. 1998, at 5, 10, availableat http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/01/2/gr0I0205.pdf.
73. Coleman v. Caddo Parish Sch. Bd., 635 So. 2d 1238 (La. Ct. App. 1994).
74. The statute states,
It is the intent of the legislature that 'sex education' shall not include religious beliefs,
practices in human sexuality, nor the subjective moral and ethical judgments of the instructor
or other persons. Students shall not be tested, quizzed, or surveyed about their personal or
family beliefs or practices in sex, morality, or religion.
La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 17:281(2) (1987).
75. 635 So. 2d at 1267-71 (striking passages that included statements such as: "[N]o one can deny
that nature is making some kind of a comment on sexual behavior through ...
AIDS," "If pre-marital
sex came in a bottle, it would probably have to carry a Surgeon-General's [sic] warning," and
"[s]piritual values are an important aspect of human sexuality"). Despite this case, Sex Respect and other
curricula continue to use this type of language, stating, "If premarital sex came in a bottle, it would
probably have to carry a Surgeon General's warning, something like the one on a package of cigarettes,"
[Vol. 19:495
In 2002, the ACLU of Louisiana challenged the Governor's Program on
Abstinence (GPA), claiming that the program violated the Supreme Court's
1988 decision in Bowen v. Kendrick.76 The GPA received its funding, roughly
$1.6 million per year, through Title V of the Social Security Act [hereinafter
Title V]. The GPA would then grant money to community organizations and
individuals to implement abstinence-only programs. According to the ACLU,
some of the organizations funded by the GPA used explicitly religious
messages to promote abstinence, 77 and the GPA program materials themselves
stated "it's time to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage in America." 78Applying
the Lemon test, the federal district court found that some provisions of the GPA
had a valid secular purpose, but that by funding pervasively sectarian
institutions, the statute had the effect of promoting religion.79 The judge
granted the ACLU a preliminary injunction, ordered the program officers to
stop funding organizations that conveyed religious messages,
and required the
80
GPA to create an oversight program to monitor the issue.
In 2005, the ACLU sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services for its funding of the Silver Ring Thing, an abstinence-only education
group that the ACLU claimed evangelized while promoting abstinence. 1 The
case settled in February 2006, when the Department of Health and Human
82
Services agreed to stop using taxpayer money to fund the Silver Ring Thing.
The settlement agreement stated that the Silver Ring Thing may not have
included adequate measures to separate religious activity from federally-funded
activity, and that if the Silver Ring Thing were to apply for federal funding
again, it would have to demonstrate compliance with regulations put forth by
83
the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families.
and "There's no way to have premarital sex without hurting someone." COLEEN KELLY MAST, SEX
RESPECT, STUDENT WORKBOOK: THE OPTION OF TRUE SEXUAL FREEDOM 47 (2001).
76. ACLU v. Foster, No. 02-1440, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13778 (E.D. La. July 24, 2002).
77. For example, a theater group called "Just say 'Whoa' used skits that included the fcllowing
lines: "As Christians, our bodies belong to the Lord, not to us. God wants more for you than a one-night
stand. We belong to Him and He has plans for us that go beyond Saturday night," and "Even if you've
made a mistake... Jesus can make it right." Id. at 16-*17.
78. Press Release, ACLU, ACLU Asks Court To Stop Taxpayer Financing of Religion in
Abstinence-Only Programs (May 9, 2002), available at http://www.aclu.org/reproductiverights
/sexed/16419prs 20020509.html.
79. Foster,2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13778, at *17.
80. Id. at *18-*19. The case settled six months later. ACLU v. Foster, No. 02-1440, 2003 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 3818 (E.D. La. Mar. 10, 2003).
81. ACLUv. Leavitt, Civ. A. No. 05-11000 (D. Mass. filed May 16, 2005) was filed in the federal
district court of Massachusetts. The complaint is available at http://www.aclu.org/reproductive
rights/sexed/126031g120050516.html (last visited Oct. 17, 2007). See also Ervin Dyer, Opinions Vary on
Funding Cut-Offfor Faith-BasedAbstinence Program,PITTS. POST-GAZETTE, Aug. 24, 2005, available
at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05236/558937.stm.
82. Press Release, ACLU, ACLU Announces Settlement in Challenge to Government-Funded
Religion in the Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Program the "Silver Ring Thing" (Feb. 23, 2006),
availableat http://www.aclu.org/reproductiverights/sexed/24246prs20060223.html.
83. Settlement Agreement at 2-3, ACLU v. Leavitt, Civ. A. No. 05-11000 (D. Mass. Feb. 22,
2006), availableat http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/srtsettlementagreement.pdf.
2008]
II. ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEXUALITY EDUCATION
There are two types of sexuality education used in U.S. public schools.
Comprehensive sexuality education programs, often called "abstinence-plus"
programs, teach that abstinence is the best choice for avoiding pregnancy and
sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but also discuss alternative forms of
contraception. 84 Comprehensive programs provide factually accurate
information on topics such as masturbation, STIs, abortion, and
homosexuality." In 1991, SIECUS convened a national task force to develop
guidelines for comprehensive sexuality education programs; the guidelines
have since been updated in 1996 and 2004 to reflect new information and
developments in sexuality education. The 2004 Guidelines state that the
purpose of sexuality education is to provide students with "a positive view of
sexuality, provide them with information they need to take care of their sexual
86
health, and help them acquire skills to make decisions now and in the future."
The Guidelines emphasize six key concepts that comprehensive sexuality
education programs should address: human development, relationships,
87
personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture.
Included in the Guidelines' statement of values are statements such as:
"Sexuality is a natural and healthy part of living;" "In a pluralistic society,
people should respect and accept the diversity of values and beliefs about
sexuality that exist in a community;" and "All persons have the right and
obligation to make responsible sexual choices." 88 These general principles for
sexuality education are also endorsed by the Society for Adolescent
Medicine. 89 The basic goals of comprehensive sexuality education are to
provide a picture of sexuality that takes into account diverse views of human
sexuality and to teach students how to make decisions regarding their sexuality.
There is currently no federal funding directed specifically at comprehensive
90
sexuality education.
84. NAOMI FARBER, ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY 79 (2003).
85. Advocates for Youth, Sex Education Programs: Definitions & Point-by-Point Comparison,
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/rrr/definitions.pdf (last visited Sept. 18, 2007).
86. NATIONAL
GUIDELINES
TASK FORCE,
GUIDELINES
FOR COMPREHENSIVE
SEXUALITY
EDUCATION: KINDERGARTEN-I2TH GRADE 19 (3d ed. 2004), available at http://www.siecus.org/pubs/
guidelines/guidelines.pdf.
87. Id. at 15.
88. Id. at 20.
89. See Society for Adolescent Medicine, Abstinence-Only Education Policies and Programs: A
Position Paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 38 J. ADOLESCENT HEALTH 83, 86 (2006)
(supporting sexuality education programs that "provide adolescents with complete and accurate
information about sexual health, including information about concepts of healthy sexuality, sexual
orientation and tolerance, personal responsibility, risks of HIV and other STIs and unwanted pregnancy,
access to reproductive health care, and benefits and risks of condoms and other contraceptive methods").
90. In March 2007, however, the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act was introduced
into Congress. This Act would create federal funding, administered by the Department for Health and
Human Services, for comprehensive sexuality education that would stress abstinence but also educate
[Vol. 19:495
Abstinence-only education programs, on the other hand, teach that
abstinence from sexual relationships outside of marriage is expected of all
people, and that it is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and STIs. The
federal definition of "abstinence" prohibits educators from discussing the
benefits of contraceptives, leading some teachers not to mention them at all,
while others mention them only in order to highlight their failure rates. These
programs advance the idea that the expected standard of human sexuality is
within a "mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of
marriage," 9 1 and that sex before marriage is likely to have significant harmful
consequences. 92 Most abstinence-only programs also reinforce traditional
gender stereotypes with descriptions of how men and women differ physically,
psychologically, and emotionally. 93 All either ignore or condemn
94
homosexuality.
Abstinence-only programs, most of which are funded by the federal
government, must also conform their teaching to the federal definition of
abstinence-only education. The federal definition of abstinence-only education,
as set forth in Title V, includes eight criteria. By definition, abstinence-only
education "teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way
to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other
associated health problems"; "teaches that sexual activity outside of the context
of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects"; and
"teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful
consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society." 95 Proponents of
adolescents about contraception. See Advocates for Youth, Responsible Education About Life (REAL)
Act, http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsreal.pdf (last visited Sept. 18, 2007).
91. 42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2)(D) (1996).
92. Advocates for Youth, supra note 90.
93. See MINORITY STAFF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS DIV., U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, THE
CONTENT OF FEDERALLY FUNDED ABSTINENCE ONLY EDUCATION PROGRAMS 16-18 (2004), available
at
http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20041201102153-50247.pdf
[hereinafter
WAXMAN REPORT); KRIS FRAINIE, WHY KNOw ABSTINENCE EDUCATION PROGRAMS: CURRICULUM
FOR SIXTH GRADE THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL 4 (Marcia Sweavingen & Pam Susler eds., 2002) ("Explain
to the students that some activities may be done by both parents, but ask which parent is more likely to
cut grass, wash clothes, decorate the home, etc.").
94. See infra note 229.
95. 42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2)(C),(E),(F) (1996). The full text regarding the criteria for abstinence-only
programs reads:
For purposes of this section, the term "abstinence education" means an educational or
motivational program which(A) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be
realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
(B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all
school age children;
(C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-ofwedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
(D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the
expected standard of human sexual activity;
(E) teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful
psychological and physical effects;
2008]
abstinence-only education assert that telling teenagers that abstinence is the
best way to avoid pregnancy and STI transmission, while at the same time
providing information about condoms and contraceptives, sends a mixed
message. Other supporters of abstinence-only education argue that discussing
96
sex and contraceptive methods actually encourages young people to have sex.
Thus, abstinence-only enthusiasts claim that the only way to achieve the
desired goals of preventing risky teenage sexual activity is to send a clear
message that any sex outside of marriage is unacceptable. As one author
at higher levels when standards are set at levels
argues, students will "achieve
97
high.
but
that are realistic,
The main difference between comprehensive sex education and abstinenceonly sex education is that the former is more concerned with practices, while
the latter is more concerned with values. Comprehensive sex education
attempts to teach teenagers different ways to avoid unwanted pregnancies,
STIs, or unwanted sexual contact, but generally does not teach students that
they should engage in or refrain from any particular acts. Abstinence-only
education, meanwhile, provides very little practical information on the "how"
and focuses instead on instilling sexual values associated with certain
conservative religious groups. One researcher who spent time doing fieldwork
and interviews in evangelical communities sees the difference as "whether the
98
emphasis is on saving kids' bodies or saving their souls."
A. FederalFundingfor Abstinence-Only Education Programs
There is no federal policy dictating whether schools must provide sexuality
education or, if they do, what that education must consist of. Twenty states
currently require schools to teach sex education, while thirty-five require STI
and HIV education. 99 Of those that require sex education, fifteen require that
schools cover or stress abstinence, and eight require that the schools cover
contraception. 00 Seven of the states that mandate the teaching of abstinence do
(F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for
the child, the child's parents, and society;
(G) teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use
increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and
(H) teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.
42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2) (1996).
96. See, e.g., Joseph Collison, Sex Education ProgramsPromote Teen Promiscuity, in TEENAGE
SEXUALITY: OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS 153 (Tamara L. Roleff ed., 2001). There is no evidence that
teaching students about contraception is correlated with increased sexual activity among the students.
See infra Part III.C.
97. Joe S. Mcllhaney Jr., Abstinence-Only Programs Reduce Teen Sexual Activity, in TEENAGE
SEXUALITY: OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS, supra note 96, at 138.
98. GOLDBERG, supra note 1, at 146.
99. ALAN GUTTrMACHER INSTITUTE, STATE POLICIES IN BRIEF: SEX AND STI/HIV EDUCATION
(2007), availableat http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib-SE.pdf.
100. Id.
[Vol. 19:495
not require any mention of contraception.' 01 Of those that do not require
sexuality education, eleven states mandate that if school districts adopt
sexuality education programs, they must cover or stress abstinence, but not
contraception. 102 Despite the lack of federal or state requirements, the majority
of school districts in the nation do have sexuality education policies. Of the
policies that exist, 65% support
comprehensive education and 35% support
03
1
education.
abstinence-only
Although there is no federal educational policy on what kind of sexuality
education school districts should teach, and curricular decisions are usually
determined locally, there is significant federal funding for abstinence-only
programs. The legislation granting this funding to abstinence-only programs
was conceived of, pushed through Congress, and has been continually
supported by religious lobbying groups and responsive lawmakers.
As the sex education movement grew in the 1970s and 1980s, 10 4 so did the
political presence of the New Right, with its strong evangelical Christian
base. 0 5 One focus of this newly energized religious group was "pro-family"
politics, which included anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, and anti-sex
education movements.1° 6 At first, the Christian Right opposed all sexuality
education, at least in part because it was seen as part of a Communist plot that
involved secularizing the United States. 1 7 Later, in order to counter the sex
education movement that groups such as SIECUS were promoting, the
Christian Right came up with its own "alternative sexuality industry,"' 08 which
moved Evangelicals away from the denial of all sexuality, and instead
condoned, and even celebrated "divinely approved sex."' 109 The focus of this
alternative sexuality industry is sex within heterosexual marriage-all other sex
is strongly condemned.
1. FederalFunding Statutes
In 1981, Congress passed the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA)," °
which authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants
101. Id.
102. Id.
103. FARBER, supra note 84, at 105; See also ALAN GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE, SEX EDUCATION:
NEEDS, PROGRAMS AND POLICIES 23 (2005), available at http://www.guttmacher.org/presentations/
sex.ed.pdf (illustrating the use of abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education programs by
region).
104. LUKER, supra note 2, at 84-87.
105. Diane di Mauro & Carole Joffe, The Religious Right and the Reshaping of Sexual Policy: An
Examination of Reproductive Rights and Sexuality Education, 4 SEXUALITY RES. & SOC. POL'Y 67, 79
(2007).
106. JANICE M. IRVINE, TALK ABOUT SEX 66 (2002).
107. WILCOX, supra note 10, at 9-10.
108. IRVINE, supra note 106, at 82.
109. Id. at 83.
110. Pub. L. No. 97-35, § 955(a), 95 Stat. 582 (1981).
2008]
I
to projects that offer teenage sexuality, pregnancy, and parenthood services.' I
The statute authorized appropriations of thirty million dollars per year, at least
two-thirds of which was to be used for demonstration projects."H2 These grants
are restricted to service providers who do not provide abortions, abortion
counseling, or referrals to abortion services." 3 Abstinence programs within the
AFLA have been granted thirteen million dollars each year since its
inception.'14
The origins of the AFLA illustrate the ways in which abstinence education
has been tied to the Christian Right from its very beginnings. The AFLA was
cosponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch and Jeremiah Denton, a one-term senator
who was backed by the Moral Majority, had consulted for the Christian
Broadcasting Network, and founded the Coalition for Decency. 1 5 Indeed, two
decades after the passage of the AFLA, Senator Denton still "says America's
'top priority should be to recover our most fundamental founding belief that our
national objectives, policies, and laws should reflect obedience to the will of
Almighty God.""1 6 It is thus not surprising that the "AFLA, from its inception,
i
sought to further the Christian Right's cultural and political goals."'' 7
Accordingly, the AFLA originally required that groups seeking funding involve
religious groups in their implementation of the abstinence-only programs. 18
Even though these provisions of the AFLA were challenged in Bowen v.
Kendrick, and many of the most overtly religious provisions and applications
were struck, it is clear that the "AFLA amplified the conservative religious pro' 119
sex movement."
In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (commonly known as "welfare reform"),
which contains a provision allotting funds for abstinence-only education to the
states. 120 Title V earmarked fifty million dollars per year for the first five years
after its passage. Under Title V, states apply for the funding themselves, then
distribute the money as grants to various organizations, including public
schools,
faith-based
organizations,
and
community-based
health
122
organizations. 12 States must match the federal grant at seventy-five percent.
Ill. 42 U.S.C. § 300z-2(a) (1994).
112. 42 U.S.C. §§ 300z-9(a), (b) (1994).
113. 42 U.S.C. § 300z-10(a) (1994).
114. SIECUS, Fiscal Year 2007 Appropriations Completed as Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Released,
http://www.siecus.org/policy/PUpdates/pdate0307.html (last visited July 29, 2007).
116. MARTY KLEIN, AMERICA'S WAR ON SEX 8 (2006).
118. Id. at 93.
119. ld. at 94.
120. 42 U.S.C. § 710 (1996).
121. Jones, supra note 19, at 1082.
122. See U.S. Dep't of Health & Human Servs. Maternal and Child Health
http://mchb.hrsa.gov/about/overview.htm (last visited Aug. 27, 2007).
Bureau,
[Vol. 19:495
President Bush has requested to maintain the fifty million dollars for Title V for
fiscal year 2008.123 Like the AFLA, religiously-affiliated organizations were
behind the passage of Title V. 124 In 1995 Senators Lauch Faircloth 25 and Rick
Santoruml 26 introduced an abstinence-only education program whose language
was developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Christian lobbying
group. 127 While this legislation ultimately was not passed, it was the precursor
to Title V, which was passed shortly thereafter.
Most recently, in 2000, the Special Projects of Regional and National
Significance-Community Based Abstinence Education (SPRANS-CBAE)
[hereinafter CBAE] was established. This program allows the federal
government to give grants to private and public entities for abstinence-only
education. Notably, unlike Title V, which until Fiscal Year 2007 only required
that recipients not use messages inconsistent with the federal definition of
abstinence-only education, 28 CBAE recipients have always been required to
129
explicitly adhere to and promote all eight of the government's criteria.
CBAE recipients must also agree not to provide "any other education regarding
sexual conduct in the same setting.' 130 Since 2001, CBAE has quickly become
123. SIECUS, supra note 114.
125. Faircloth was a one-term senator from North Carolina from 1993 to 1999. Biographical
Directory of the United States Congress, Duncan McLauchlin Faircloth, http://bioguide.congress.gov/
scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000437 (last visited Oct. 17, 2007).
126. Santorum served in the Senate from 1995 to 2007. Known for his conservative views on issues
such as abortion and homosexuality, Santorum is also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy
Center, an organization "dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of
public
policy."
See
Ethics
and
Public
Policy
Center,
Rick
Santorum,
http://www.eppc.org/scholars/scholarlD.88/scholar.asp (last visited Oct. 17, 2007); Ethics and Public
Policy Center, About, http://www.eppc.org/about/ (last visited Oct. 17, 2007). He also proposed adding
language to the No Child Left Behind Act to encourage the teaching of intelligent design in schools.
Peter Slevin, Battle Over Teaching Evolution Intensifies Across U.S., WASH. POST, Mar. 14, 2005, at
Al.
127. ESTHER KAPLAN, WITH GOD ON THEIR SIDE: GEORGE W. BUSH AND THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT
209 (2005); Jones, supra note 19, at 1092; Daniel Daley, Exclusive Purpose: Abstinence-Only
Proponents Create FederalEntitlement in Welfare Reform, in 25 SIECUS REPORT, Apr.-May 1997, at
4, availableat http://www.siecus.org/siecusreport/volume25/25-4.pdf.
128. U.S, DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUM. SERVS. ADMIN. FOR CHILDREN & FAMILIES, FY 2006
PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT: SECTION 510 ABSTINENCE EDUCATION 9 (2005). In Fiscal Year 2007 the
Department of Health and Human Services changed the rules for grant applicants, requiring that in
programs funded by Title V "each element [of the Title V definition of abstinence education] should be
meaningfully represented." U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUM. SERVS., ADMIN. FOR CHILDREN &
FAMILIES, FY 2007 PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT: SECTION 510 ABSTINENCE EDUCATION 24-25 (2006),
available at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/pdf/ACYF-FYSB-AE-01 -06updated.pdf
129. Maternal and Child Health Federal Set-Aside Program; Special Projects of Regional and
National Significance; Community-Based Abstinence Education Project Grants, 68 Fed. Reg. 68632-03,
68634 (Dec. 9, 2003) ("Curriculum developed or selected for implementation in the SPRANS
Community-Based Abstinence Education Grants Program must address all eight elements of the Section
510 abstinence education definition and may not be inconsistent with any aspect of that definition.").
130. Id. at 68635.
2008]
the most heavily funded of the three programs, with Congress raising funding
31
to 141 million dollars in 2007.1
Many CBAE recipients are religious organizations. 32 President Bush, in a
2003 speech about faith-based organizations, noted that millions of federal
dollars had been given to faith-based abstinence education programs and told
the audience, "Our society must not fear the use of faith to solve life's
problems." '1 33 Because CBAE grants are given directly to private groups, not
only can CBAE bypass states' efforts to reject abstinence education by
rejecting the federal funds, but the money often flows to faith-based groups that
34
have little or no experience conducting sexuality education.'
2. Recipients ofAbstinence-Only Funding
Conservative Christian groups have not only been instrumental in passing
abstinence-only education funding legislation, they are also the recipients of
much of that funding. While funding recipients generally no longer overtly
promote religion, as they once did, 135 faith-based groups receive a significant
amount of all abstinence-only funding. For example, 21.5% of the CBAE
funding currently goes to faith-based groups, of which 93% (twenty-eight out
of thirty organizations) are Christian.' 36 Prior to 2005, seven million dollars in
CBAE money had gone to "overtly Christian organizations," while none had
gone to Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or other non-Christian religious
groups. 137 Jim Towey, the director of the White House's Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives office, even said he would not give equal consideration
to pagan applicants for funds in areas such as abstinence education, because
they "lacked the necessary 'loving hearts."",138 Abstinence-only funds have also
been granted to over a dozen crisis pregnancy centers and other explicitly prolife groups, revealing that federal funding for abstinence expressly endorses
religious views of sex and reproduction beyond abstinence. 139 Similarly, the
CBAE grant review panels in the past have included numerous representatives
131.
Cheryl Wetzstein, Congress Extends Funding for Abstinence Education, WASH. TIMES, July
15, 2007, at A2. Although it appeared in June 2007 that Congress might reduce or eliminate some
abstinence-only funding, as of November 2007, it has continued to renew the funding every three
months. See Cheryl Wetzstein, Foes Hit Continued Abstinence Funding, WASH. TIMES, Sept. 30, 2007,
at A2; SIECUS, Mixed Bag on Funding Decisions from House and Senate (June 2007),
http://www.siecus.org/policy/PUpdates/pdate0332.html.
132. See infra Part III.A.2.
133. President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Power Center 10th Anniversary Celebration (Sept.
12, 2003), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030912-14.html.
134. See LEGAL MOMENTUM, AN OVERVIEW OF FEDERAL ABSTINENCE-ONLY FUNDING 9-10
(2007), http://www.legalmomentum.org/legalmomentum/publications/OverviewofAbs.pdf.
135.
LEGAL MOMENTUM, supra note 134; see also supra Part II.C.
LEGAL MOMENTUM, supra note 134, at 10.
137. KAPLAN, supra note 127, at 214.
136.
138. Id. at 45.
139. Id. at 52.
[Vol. 19:495
of Christian evangelical groups and Christian lobbying groups but no
representatives of other religious groups. 140
In addition to the three major sources of funding, other federal funds are
granted to religiously-affiliated abstinence-only programs. In Fiscal Year 2006,
over $200,000 was earmarked for the Medical Institute of Sexual Health
(MISH) (recently renamed The Medical Institute) to develop a sexual health
curriculum for medical schools, under the supervision of Dr. W. David
Hager. 14 1 MISH follows the abstinence-only model, relying on inaccurate facts
about contraception, and emphasizing supposed psychological harm that comes
from extra-marital sex.142 Dr. Hager, whose appointment to the FDA Advisory
Committee for Reproductive Health was opposed by those who disagreed with
Hager's faith-based approach to curing reproductive health diseases, is best
issues. 143
known for being the author of Christian guides to reproductive health
Even the most extremist Christian groups have benefited from this government
funding. For example, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church
has received almost $500,000 per year to run an abstinence-education program
in New Jersey. 144 The program, Free Teens USA, is run by a group of
Unificationist directors, and the president of Moon's Family Federation for
World Peace and Unification has hailed the program's alumni as "on the
frontline for the relief of God's third headache, the decline of youth morality
145
and the family."'
B. Abstinence-Only Curricula
With the assistance of these federal policies, numerous abstinence-only
programs have emerged. Some of the most popular programs are Sex Respect,
Choosing the Best, and Why kNOw. According to its website, Sex Respect is
used in schools in all fifty states as well as in twenty-three countries. 146 Its
critics assert that the Sex Respect program is a thinly veiled version of its
140. Id. at 214-15.
141. LEGAL MOMENTUM, supra note 134, at 11.
143. Id. at 114-15. One of Dr. Hager's beliefs that received significant media attention was his
claim that prayer could cure pre-menstrual syndrome. See, e.g., Karen Tumulty, Jesus and the FDA,
TIME, Oct. 14, 2002, at 26. An obstetrician and gynecologist, Hager has written various books
addressing reproductive health from a religious perspective. See, e.g., W. DAVID HAGER, As JESUS
CARED FOR WOMEN: RESTORING WOMEN THEN AND Now (1998); THE REPRODUCTIVE REVOLUTION:
A CHRISTIAN APPRAISAL OF SEXUALITY, REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, AND THE FAMILY (John
Frederic Kilner, Paige C. Conniugham & W. David Hager eds., 2000); see also Ayelish McGarvey, Dr.
Hager's Family Values, NATION, May 30, 2005 (profiling Hager's career and family life).
144. LEGAL MOMENTUM, SEX, LIES & STEREOTYPES: PROFILES OF FEDERALLY-FUNDED
ABSTINENCE-ONLY GRANT RECIPIENTS 6 (2006); John Gorenfeld, Bad Moon on the Rise, SALON, Sept.
24, 2003, http://dir.salon.com/ story/news/feature/2003/09/24/moon/index.html.
145. Id.
146. Sex Respect, How Did the Sex Respect Program Originate?, http://www.sexrespect.com/
ProgramOrig2.html (last visited Oct. 17, 2007).
2008]
47
creator's popular Love & Life program, a Christian program for chastity.1
Why kNOw was founded to respond to the number of teenage pregnancies and
STIs in northwest Georgia. Why kNOw offers a public school program,
numerous groups and clubs, and a faith-based program that can be implemented
by churches and private schools. 14 8 According to the Waxman Report, Why
kNOw is one of the most widely used programs by recipients of CBAE
funding, 149 and receives almost $500,000 a year in federal money." 5 A third
popular program is Choosing the Best, which has different programs tailored to
different grade levels. Over 1.5 million students have been through the
Choosing the Best program, and as of 2004, it had received over $800,000 in
federal grants per year. 151 Its program for eighth grade students, Choosing the
52
Best Life, offers students the opportunity to pledge abstinence until marriage.'
All three programs comply with the federal requirements by supporting the
Title V definition of abstinence.
Most of the popular programs contain factual inaccuracies as well as
specific moralistic statements. Some of the factually incorrect statements that
the programs use to scare students about sex and contraception include:
"Condoms provide no proven reduction in protection against Chlamydia, the
most common bacterial STD," and "the virus [HIV] may be in your body a
long time (from a few months to as long as 10 years or more) before it can be
detected, either by a test or by physical symptoms."' 153 The value-laden
messages the programs advance include the idea that "marriage is the only
147. Simson & Sussman, supra note 16, at 284.
148. The faith-based program educates children on God's plan of saving sex for marriage. See Why
kNOw Abstinence Education Programs, Online Store, http://whyknow.org/www/products/I 17.4 (last
visited Oct. 17, 2007).
149. WAXMAN REPORT, supranote 93, at 6.
150. LEGAL MOMENTUM, supra note 144, at 26.
151. Id.at 2.
152. Choosing the Best, Choosing the Best Curriculum, http://www.choosingthebest.org/
curricula/index.html (last visited Oct. 30, 2007).
153. SIECUS, IN THEIR OWN WORDS: WHAT ABSTINENCE-ONLY UNTIL MARRIAGE PROGRAMS
SAY 1-2 (2005), available at http://www.siecus.org/policy/injtheir own words.pdf. Scientific evidence
shows that when used correctly, condoms reduce the risk of STIs including chlamydia. CENTERS FOR
DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION, FACT SHEET FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PERSONNEL: MALE LATEX
CONDOMS
AND
SEXUALLY
TRANSMITTED
DISEASES
4,
available
at
http://www.cdc.gov/condomeffectiveness/condoms.pdf (last visited Nov. 8, 2007). Since 1987, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that in most people, HIV will be detected
within three months of contraction. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Perspectivesin Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion Public Health Service Guidelines for Counseling and Antibody
Testing to Prevent HIV Infection and Aids, 36(31) MORBIDITY & MORTALITY WKLY. REP. 598 (1987).
For a further discussion of the scientific inaccuracies of abstinence-only education programs, see
WAXMAN REPORT, supra note 93, at 8-12, noting that several abstinence-only programs rely on a
discredited scientific study of the effectiveness of condoms that greatly underestimated their efficacy in
preventing the transmission of HIV, and many others significantly overestimate the failure rate of
contraceptives, and id. at 21, quoting Why kNOw program as stating that each human being receives
twenty-four chromosomes from each of its parents, when the actual number is twenty-three.
[Vol. 19:495
relationship that can secure [the] meaning" of sexual love, 154 that premarital sex
"leads to unhappiness, divorce, extramarital affairs, and dissatisfaction," 155 and
that "when compared to sex in a strong marriage relationship, [sex outside of
marriage] is worthless."'1 56 According to a large-scale survey of abstinence-only
programs published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, "One study of
abstinence-only program directors, instructors, and youth found that all groups
defined abstinence in moral terms, such as 'making a commitment' and 'being
responsible,' as well as in more behavioral terms." 157 Thus in abstinence-only
classes, abstinence is taught as a moral value, as it is put forth in the funding
statute, whereas in comprehensive sex-education classes, abstinence is taught
as a behavioral method for avoiding unwanted consequences from sex.
Although the challenges to religious teachings in abstinence-only curricula
have forced some recipients of federal abstinence-only funds to alter their
curricula, many curricula still subtly promote religious views of sexuality and
marriage. One of the most obvious examples is Why kNOw, which offers
students a biblical passage in its lesson on what "real love" is. According to the
teacher's manual, real love: "Is patient. Is kind. Does not envy. Does not boast.
Is not proud. Is not rude. Is not self-seeking. Is not easily angered. Keeps no
record of wrongs. Does not delight in evil. Rejoices with the truth. Always
protects. Always trusts. Always hopes. Always lasts. Never fails."'' 58 This
definition of love is identical to that in Corinthians 1:13:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it
keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices
always trusts, always hopes, always
with the truth. It always protects,
159
perseveres. Love never fails.
In a less overt way, other curricula teach students to expect a wedding that
conforms only to Christian tradition. For example, Heritage Keepers tells boys
to imagine their wedding day, beginning with "[y]ou are standing at the front of
the church." 160 It goes on to describe a traditional Christian wedding with
attendants and a bride clad in white being escorted down an aisle by her
154. Sex Respect, Questions from Students, http://www.sexrespect.com/StudentQ.htm
Oct. 17, 2007).
(last visited
155. Id.
156. FRAINIE, supra note 93, at 128.
157. John Santelli et al., Abstinence and Abstinence-only Education: A Review of U.S. Policies and
Programs,38 J. ADOLESCENT HEALTH 72, 73 (2006).
158. FRAINIE, supra note 93, at 118.
159. 1 Corinthians13: 4-8 (New International).
160. ANNE M. BADGLEY, CARRIE MUSSELMANN & TRACEY CASALE, HERITAGE COMMUNITY
SERVICES, HERITAGE KEEPERS: ABSTINENCE EDUCATION TEACHER MANUAL 1,at 73 (2004).
2008]
father. 16' Why kNOw also uses language with biblical connotations when
62
discussing various types of love. 1
Even those curricula that do not promote specific religious teachings still
promote religion generally or adopt religious doctrine on abortion or marriage.
For example, the Clue curriculum "states that '[i]t is not always easy, but the
most encouraging success rates [for secondary virginity] are when this new
commitment is rooted in religious conviction'. . . and that '[r]eligions vary, but
every religious scripture has a clearly worded waming about the dangers of
misusing sex."' 163 Most abstinence-only curricula also adopt religious teachings
that define life as beginning at conception, and refer to fetuses in utero as
babies.' 64 Me, My World, My Future explicitly addresses the abortion debate,
stating that "[p]ro-life advocates point to the biological fact that human life
begins at conception and that abortion takes the life of an innocent unborn
child."' 165 Clue invites students to take a virginity pledge in which they pledge
before God not to have sex until after marriage. 166 In these ways, as scholars
have previously noted, many individual abstinence curricula themselves still
promote religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.
C. Impact and Outcomes ofAbstinence Education
Whether or not students agree with the ideological messages about sex
found in abstinence-only education, the programs simply do not work to alter
their students' sexual behavior. Numerous studies have shown that students
who are given accurate information about contraception are less likely to
encounter unwanted pregnancies or STIs than students who do not receive this
161. Id.
162. SIECUS, Curriculum Review: Why kNOw: A Fear-Based Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage
Curriculum for Students in Grades 6-12 (2007), http://www.communityactionkit.org/reviews/
WhyKnow.html. SIECUS notes:
Although it does not identify it as such, Why kNOw also uses religious language. In an
activity on love, the curriculum uses several Greek words to define different types of love.
The ultimate type of love, which the curriculum calls unconditional love, is referred to as
Agape. While this does have its roots in ancient Greece, today the word is more commonly
associated with Christianity where it means "love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and
selfless."
Id.
163. PURE LOVE ALLIANCE, CLUE 2000: A CHARACTER AND ABSTINENCE EDUCATION
CURRICULUM FOR THE NEW MILLENIUM ch. 2 at 3, & ch. 3 at 3-4 (2000).
164. Virtually all abstinence-only curricula adhere to the conservative Christian idea that life begins
at conception. See, e.g., SIECUS, supra note 162 ("It teaches that life begins at conception, referring
consistently to the 'new life' or 'baby' and never teaching the term 'fetus."'); BADGLEY, MUSSELMANN
& CASALE, supra note 160, at 34-35 ("The implanted egg develops into a fetus, which is a developing
baby inside the mother's womb.").
165. TEEN-AID, ME, MY WORLD, My FUTURE 206 (1987).
166. PURE LOVE ALLIANCE, supra note 163, at 4. The pledge contains a footnote justifying its
inclusion of "God" by noting that the Pledge of Allegiance and U.S. currency also include the word
"God." Id. at 4 n. 1.Of course, the reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance has also been challenged
as unconstitutional in recent years, although not yet successfully. See, e.g., Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist.
v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004); Myers v. Loudoun County Pub. Sch., 418 F.3d 395 (4th Cir. 2005).
[Vol. 19:495
information. One such study found that girls who received family planning
counseling and contraception significantly postponed the onset of
intercourse.
167
A review of programs to reduce teenage pregnancy found that
some comprehensive programs delayed the onset of sex, reduced the frequency
of sex, and reduced the number of partners a teen might have. 168 Another sex
education researcher notes that all successful programs "provide basic, accurate
information about the risks of teen sexual activities and about ways to avoid
intercourse or use methods of protection against pregnancy and STDs" and
"[d]eliver and consistently reinforce a clear message about abstaining from
sexual activity and/or using condoms or other forms of contraception."1' 69 These
findings corroborate a 1997 study by UNAIDS, which, based on twenty-two
reports from around the world, found that comprehensive sexual health and
HIV/AIDS education "delayed the onset of sexual activity, reduced the
number
' 170
of sexual partners, or reduced unplanned pregnancy and STD rates."
Studies of abstinence-only education programs demonstrate that they are
ineffective in altering adolescent sexual activity or protecting against
pregnancy and STIs. 171 In the case of young adolescents who take virginity
pledges in small groups the pledges can delay sexual initiation by up to
eighteen months. 172 However, up to 88% of teenagers who take virginity
167. MICHELLE FINE & Lois WEIS, SILENCED VOICES AND EXTRAORDINARY CONVERSATIONS: REIMAGINING SCHOOLS 58 (2003).
168. DOUGLAS KIRBY, THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN To PREVENT TEEN PREGNANCY, EMERGING
ANSWERS: RESEARCH FINDINGS ON PROGRAMS TO REDUCE TEEN PREGNANCY (SUMMARY) 10, 18,
(2001), available at http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/data/pdf/emeranswsum.pdf (reviewing 250
sex education programs and finding that the most successful ones emphasize abstinence as well as
contraception, and that studies of abstinence education have shown no effect on sexual behavior or
contraceptive use).
169. Id. at 10; see also PROFESSIONAL DATA ANALYSTS, INC. & PROFESSIONAL EVALUATION
SERVICES, MINNESOTA EDUCATION NOW AND BABIES LATER EVALUATION REPORT 1998-2002, at 9-11
(2002), available at http://www.saynotyet.com/pdfs/eval-report/enabl-report-doc.pdf (finding that a
Minnesota abstinence-only program had no effect on students' intentions to remain abstinent or on their
sexual activity).
170. UNAIDS, IMPACT OF HIV AND SEXUAL HEALTH EDUCATION ON THE SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR OF
YOUNG PEOPLE: A REVIEW UPDATE (2006), available at http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRCpub0 1/jcO 10-impactyoungpeople en.pdf
171. DOUGLAS KIRBY, THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT TEEN PREGNANCY, Do
ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS DELAY THE INITIATION OF SEX AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE AND REDUCE
TEEN
PREGNANCY?
(2002),
available
at
http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/data/
abstinenceeeval.pdf (reviewing studies that claim abstinence programs are effective and finding that
most did not provide credible evidence to support this assertion); CHRISTOPHER TRENHOLM ET AL., U.S.
DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUM. SERVS., MATHEMATICA POLICY RESEARCH, IMPACTS OF FOUR TITLE V,
SECTION 510 ABSTINENCE EDUCATION PROGRAMS (2002), available at http://mpr.com/publications/
redirect-pubsdb.asp?strSite=PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf (concluding that students in federally-funded
abstinence-only programs are no more likely to remain abstinent or use contraception than other
students); Kristen Underhill, Paul Montgomery & Don Operario, Sexual Abstinence Only Programmes
to Prevent HIV Infection in High Income Countries: Systematic Review, BRIT. MED. J., Jul. 26, 2007, at
1, available at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.39245.446586.BEvl (finding that none of the
studied abstinence programs "affected incidence of unprotected sex, number of partners, condom use, or
sexual initiation").
172. Peter Bearman & Hannah Bruckner, After the Promise: The STD Consequences ofAdolescent
Virginity Pledges, 36 J. ADOLESCENT HEALTH 271, 275 (2005) [hereinafter After the Promise]; see also
2008)
pledges do end up having premarital sex. 17 3 And, even those who do not have
intercourse engage in oral and anal sex at higher rates than students who do not
engage in intercourse but have not taken virginity pledges. 174 Students who take
virginity pledges also tend to have similar rates of STIs as their non-pledging
peers, but are less aware of their infections and are less likely to get tested for
STIs. 175 Most alarmingly, those students who have had abstinence-only
programs are less likely than their peers to use condoms or other forms of
contraception when they do have sex. 176 Indeed, even the drafters of Title V
recognized as early as 1996 that there was no empirical evidence to support
abstinence-only education as a means of preventing either teenage or extramarital births. In defending the legislation, the Congressional staff members
who worked on it stated:
[T]here is little direct evidence, beyond the New Jersey study just
cited, that any particular policy or program reduces the frequency of
nonmarital births. Even so, recent history contains many examples of
federal policies, including highly controversial and expensive policies,
77
that enjoyed little empirical support at the time of introduction.'
International and domestic public health organizations and experts have
also recognized the benefits of comprehensive sexuality education rather than
abstinence-only programs. The World Health Organization (WHO) explicitly
states that comprehensive sexuality education programs should be used in the
education context to promote sexual health.' 78 The World Association for
Sexual Health, in its Declarationof Sexual Rights, states that sexual health is a
fundamental human right which requires the recognition of the right to make
free and responsible reproductive choices, the right to sexual information based
179
upon scientific inquiry, and the right to comprehensive sexuality education.
In 2001, then-Surgeon General David Satcher attempted to release a report
indicating that abstinence-only education had not been proven to have any
positive effects, and recommending that schools teach comprehensive sexuality
education, but he received significant opposition from both the Clinton and
Peter Bearman & Hannah Bruckner, Promisingthe Future: Virginity Pledges and FirstIntercourse, 106
AM. J. SoC. 859 (2001) [hereinafter Promisingthe Future].
173. After the Promise,supra note 172, at 275.
174. Id. at 277.
175. Id.
176. DEBORAH HAUSER, FIVE YEARS OF ABSTINENCE-ONLY-UNTIL-MARRIAGE EDUCATION:
ASSESSING THE IMPACT, ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH (2004), http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/
publications/stateevaluations.pdf; Promising the Future, supra note 172, at 899-900 (finding that
students who took abstinence pledges are one-third less likely than their peers to use contraception when
they have sex).
177. Ron Haskins & Carol Statuto Bevan, Abstinence Education Under Welfare Reform,
http://www.welfareacademy.org/conf/past/haskins2.shtml (last visited Aug. 26, 2007).
178. WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, 67 PROGRESS IN REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH RESEARCH 4
(2004), http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/hrp/progress/67.pdf.
179. World Ass'n for Sexual Health, Declaration of Sexual Rights (Aug. 26, 1999),
http://www.worldsexology.org/about-sexualrights.asp.
[Vol. 19:495
Bush administrations. 18 Despite the eventual release of this report, and the
government's knowledge that there is no scientific basis for supporting
abstinence education, funding for these programs continues to grow.
III.
THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS
Thus far, abstinence-only education programs have been challenged in
court when the programs were either administered by religious groups, or
contained explicitly religious statements in their course materials. However, it
is likewise clear that abstinence-only education itself violates the Establishment
Clause.
First, there is no secular purpose to the current abstinence-only education
scheme. As Justice Blackmun stated in his dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick,"The
legitimacy of secular legislation depends.. . on whether the State can advance
18
1
some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine."
These programs fail the first prong of the Lemon test because the means they
employ are not designed to achieve their stated secular goals. The fact that the
government continues to allocate money to abstinence-only education programs
when those programs have been proven neither to increase premarital
abstinence nor to reduce teenage pregnancy and STI transmission indicates that
the purpose of the statute is not actually to address issues of teenage sexual
health.
Second, it is not clear that even if these programs worked in making
adolescents abstinent that they would be constitutional. The abstinence-only
programs and federal statutes promote a religious idea of abstinence. The
values conveyed about sex and its appropriate place in society (namely, in
lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriages) come from the sexual morals
of certain conservative Christian groups, rather than from any secular source.
All abstinence-only statutes, state laws, and programs violate both the
endorsement test and the second prong of the Lemon test by teaching religious
values in public schools-and ignoring methods that are based in science,
public health, and sociological research.
A. There is No Secular Purposeto Abstinence-Only Education
In Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court did a thorough analysis of the
Louisiana law that gave equal treatment to creationism and evolution, and
found that it violated the first prong of the Lemon test. 182 The Court found that
180. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, The Surgeon General's Vital Mission:
Challenges for the Future (Jul. 10, 2007), http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1398.
181. 478 U.S. 186, 211 (1986) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).
182. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).
2008]
the Louisiana law had no valid secular purpose, even though there was one
stated: promoting academic freedom. Writing for the Court, Justice Brennan
stated, "The Court of Appeals, however, correctly concluded that the Act was
not designed to further that goal."' 183 The Court noted that in previous cases, it
had also held acts unconstitutional when they were not designed to meet their
stated secular goals.' 84 In Wallace v. Jaffree, a parent in Mobile County,
Alabama sued the governor and school board for allowing teachers to lead
religious prayers in public schools.' 85 The statute in question stated that
teachers could implement a minute of silence for meditation or voluntary
prayer each day in their classrooms. The statute modified an earlier statute that
said teachers should have a moment for meditation (saying nothing about
voluntary prayer). 186 Because the changes to the statute did not in any way
enhance the ability of the schools to accommodate religion, the Court
concluded that the only purpose of the revisions to the statute were to promote
religion.'87
In terms of abstinence-only education, the exact purpose of the federal
support is debatable. In addition to the promotion of abstinence in and of itself,
these statutes and programs also discuss abstinence in the context of teenage
pregnancy rates and STIs. Title V states that the statute's purpose is to enable
states to provide abstinence-only education, but that the focus of the programs
should be on groups that are most likely to have children out-of-wedlock. In
addition, the definition of abstinence-only education illustrates that pregnancy
and STI transmission are concerns. 188 The AFLA also discusses teenage
pregnancy in defining the programs that are eligible to receive funding. 189 The
website of the Administration for Children and Families states that "choosing
to abstain from sexual activities until marriage, marrying someone who has also
abstained, and maintaining a mutually monogamous relationship offer youth
100 percent protection from pre-marital pregnancy and from acquiring an
STD"'190 in its background information on CBAE grants.
If abstinence-only education's purpose is to reduce premarital pregnancy
and STIs, then its methods are not effectively related to the achievement of
those goals and cannot meet the Supreme Court's standard for "secular
purpose" as articulated in Edwards and Wallace. On the other hand, if the
program's purpose is simply the promotion of abstinence as an inherent good,
183. Id. at 586.
184. Id. at 587.
185.
Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985).
186. Id. at 40.
187. Id. at 59-60.
188. See 42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2) (1996).
189. 42 U.S.C. § 300z-5 (1994).
190. U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUM. SERVS., ADMIN. FOR CHILDREN & FAMILIES, COMMUNITY
BASED ABSTINENCE
EDUCATION
PROGRAM (2007), available at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/
grants/open/HHS-2007-ACF-ACYF-AE-0099.html.
[Vol. 19:495
without regard to the positive or negative health consequences of the programs,
then they are putting forth a moral position that is religiously based.
1. Abstinence Education Does Not Affect Adolescents'Sexual Practices
With these assertions about the consequences of premarital sex, it is
important to separate premarital abstinence from adolescent abstinence.
Although unsupported by research, 191 many people believe that teenagers are
not prepared for the physical and emotional consequences of sex and should
thus abstain. Many people also believe that teenagers tend to engage in riskier
sex than older people by failing to use condoms or contraception and thus are
more likely to encounter negative health consequences. Whether this is true or
not, abstinence-only education does not address this concern, as it focuses
solely on marital status and not on age. Abstinence-only education does not
specifically promote adolescent abstinence, since it recognizes that married
adolescents will have sex. 19 2 While the Department of Health and Human
Services states that abstinence-only education is intended for twelve to twentynine-year-olds, 193 Title V defines abstinence as refraining from all sex outside
of marriage.' 94 The curricula also promote this extreme view of abstinence for
any unmarried person, regardless of age or prior marital status. The negative
repercussions that can arise from adolescent sex are thus not the driving force
behind abstinence-only education; rather, the reification of marriage and the
promotion of a religious view of sex as intrinsically related to marriage is
behind the abstinence education movement.
More importantly, the programs are not designed to achieve their
supposedly secular goals. The stated goal of most sexuality education programs
is to give children and teenagers the information they need to understand sex
and avoid unwanted pregnancies, STI infection, and HIV/AIDS. If abstinenceonly education were to increase abstinence among teenagers, and thus to
decrease the rates of unwanted pregnancies and STIs, it would indeed have a
secular purpose that most people would likely support. There is, however,
significant evidence that abstinence-only education is designed in a way that
191.
Ann M. Meier, Adolescent First Sex and Subsequent Mental Health, 112 AM. J. Soc. 1811
(2007) (finding that in general sex had no negative impact on the mental health of teens). Despite the
absence of evidence demonstrating that sex has negative consequences for teens, Title V requires
abstinence-only programs to emphasize "that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely
to have harmful psychological and physical effects." 42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2)(E) (1996). This is only one
of many scientific and factual inaccuracies typical of abstinence education programs. See supra note 153
and accompanying text.
192. Indeed, at least some people believe that schools should be encouraging teen marriage for
pregnant and parenting teenagers as a way to resolve the so called "teen pregnancy crisis." See, e.g.,
Maggie Gallagher, Unwed Teen Parents Should Be Encouraged to Marry, in TEENAGE SEXUALITY,
supranote 96, at 122.
193. See di Mauro & Joffe, supra note 105, at 70.
194. See42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2)(1996).
2008)
fails to accomplish these secular goals. In Bowen v. Kendrick, the Supreme
Court found that the AFLA did have a legitimate secular purpose, and that the
195
statute furthered the government's interest in preventing teenage pregnancy.
However, in the twenty-five years since Bowen was decided, research studies
have consistently shown that abstinence-only programs do not have an effect
on teenage sexual practices, whereas comprehensive sexuality education
programs do help teens delay sex and protect themselves from unwanted
pregnancies and STIs. 196 The fact that each year since 1981 the government has
chosen to continue funding the AFLA and has also created Title V and CBAE,
regardless of the fact that abstinence-only education has not been proven
effective, demonstrates that the actual purpose of these statutes is not the
secular one stated. 19 7 The data clearly suggests that our "public health policy
concerning sexuality education appears to be ideologically motivated rather
than empirically driven."' 9 8 Under the Supreme Court's standard from
Aguillard, the abstinence education funding statutes have no "secular purpose."
2. Abstinence-Only EducationIs the Productof a ChristianPolitical
Movement
As the Court in Epperson v. Arkansas noted, the history of legislation is
relevant in determining its purpose. In Epperson, the Court took into account
that the anti-evolution laws in question were a product of an "upsurge of
'fundamentalist' religious fervor" in the 1920s. 199 The Court noted that the only
purpose of the law was to favor a specific religious sect, stating, "It is clear that
fundamentalist sectarian conviction was and is the law's reason for
existence. ' 2° ° The history of the development of controversial legislation is an
indication of what the purpose of the law might be, and what the legislature's
intent was in passing it. Just as a fundamentalist upsurge was responsible for
the laws forbidding the teaching of evolution, an upsurge of the Christian Right
in the 1970s and 1980s was responsible for the abstinence-only movement and
the federal legislation and abstinence-only education programs that came out of
it. The close ties between conservative religious groups and the sponsors of the
legislation raise a red flag as to the purpose of the legislation.
195. Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 602 (1988) ("As we see it, it is clear from the face of the
statute that the AFLA was motivated primarily, if not entirely, by a legitimate secular purpose-the
elimination or reduction of social and economic problems caused by teenage sexuality, pregnancy, and
parenthood.").
196. See supra Part II.C.
197. Cf Jones, supra note 19, at 1099 (arguing that while the AFLA was found to have a valid
secular purpose, no such purpose can be found in Title V as it is wholly motivated by religious ideology
and does not contain the safeguards against religious endorsement that the AFLA includes).
198. LEVINE, supranote 12, at ix.
199. Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 98 (1968).
200. Id. at 107-08.
[Vol. 19:495
These federal abstinence-only statutes were not created solely to respond to
the issues of teenage pregnancy and AIDS that became prominent social issues
in the 1970s and 1980s, but also to respond in a specifically religiouslyinfluenced manner in order to counterbalance the secular, science-based
programs that nonpartisan groups were putting forth at that time. As one former
abstinence educator explained, "The abstinence-only message is deeply linked
with evangelical Christianity ....
You're really hoping everyone will come to
Christ and wait till marriage for sex." 20' Since the creation of the abstinence
education movement, it has been driven by the Christian Right, the same group
behind the creationism and intelligent design education movements that have
already been found to violate the Establishment Clause. The history of
abstinence education legislation, as described in Part III, shows it to be the
outgrowth of a religious movement.
B. PremaritalAbstinence ItselfIs a Specific Religious Value
The second prong of the Lemon test requires that governmental acts not
have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. As the court in
Kitzmiller described this prong, "government... may not place its prestige,
coercive authority, or resources behind a single religious faith or behind
religious belief in general.,, 2 02 Abstinence-only programs are unquestionably
ideological programs, seeking to shape students' morals and to provide
normative responses to adolescent sexual behavior in accordance with religious
tenets, rather than simply to change the behavior itself. Indeed, that is one of
the biggest draws of the programs at a time when many people in the United
States seem to feel that the morality of our culture is unclear. Of course, the
Establishment Clause does not prohibit legislation based on specific ideas of
morality.20 3 The reason why federally-funded abstinence-only education
programs violate the Establishment Clause is because they were tailored to
promote the moral views of a particular religious group, rather than being
tailored to meet general secular purposes.
202. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707, 763 (M.D. Pa. 2005).
203. While the Establishment Clause clearly prohibits governmental endorsement of religion, it
does not prohibit legislation based on moral or ethical values. However, in light of some of the Court's
decisions dealing with sexual and reproductive liberties there is some question of how far moralitybased legislation can go. In Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the Court stated
that the Government's "obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate its own moral code." 505
U.S. 833, 850 (1992). The Court reiterated this statement in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 571
(2003). For discussions of whether morality legislation can still stand after Lawrence, see Sonu Bedi,
Repudiating Morals Legislation: Rendering the Constitutional Right to Privacy Obsolete, 53 CLEV. ST.
L. REv. 447 (2005-06); Suzanne B. Goldberg, Morals-Based Justificationfor Lawmaking: Before and
After Lawrence v. Texas, 88 MINN. L. REv. 1233 (2004); and Gabrielle Viator, The Validity of Criminal
Adultery ProhibitionsAfter Lawrence v. Texas, 39 SUFFOLK U. L. REv. 837 (2006).
2008)
Like most values in our multicultural, multi-religious society, it is hard to
say where the idea of premarital abstinence comes from. Most religions today
endorse abstinence prior to marriage, and indeed, the idea that people, or at
least women, should abstain from sex before marriage has been a fairly widely
held value in American society. 2 04 That valuation of premarital abstinence,
however, has never translated into a widespread practice among Americans. A
recent study shows that 95% of Americans have premarital sex and 70% of
adolescent women have sex by age nineteen.205 This is not a new phenomenon:
among women who turned fifteen in the mid-1950s, 88% had engaged in
premarital sex by the time they were forty-four years old.2 °6 In fact, as many as
one-third of pilgrim women in the seventeenth century were pregnant on their
wedding day. 2 0 7 It was only during the sexual revolution of the 1970s that
American attitudes towards premarital sex began to align with Americans'
actions regarding premarital sex. Today, only 35% of American
adults believe
2 8
0
wrong.
always
almost
or
always
is
sex
that premarital
Not only do two-thirds of the American people believe that there is nothing
inherently wrong with premarital sex, but an overwhelming majority believe
that, regardless of their personal views on abstinence, students should be given
comprehensive sex education. A recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion
amd Public Life found that 78% of people are in favor of students learning
about contraception, while 76% are in favor of students learning about
abstinence. 20 9 A 2000 Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 90% of
parents wanted school sexuality education programs to cover birth control, 85%
wanted the programs to include condom use, and 84% wanted the programs to
204. While abstinence education promotes premarital abstinence for all people, in American culture
there has always been a double standard when it comes to sexuality. Even in times of strict sexual codes,
men have always been granted the liberty to engage in premarital sex, while women's chastity has been
carefully guarded and monitored. The earliest sex educators were responding to this double standard in
attempting to enforce a single sexual morality-that which had previously been applied to women-on
both sexes. LUKER, supra note 2, at 55-56. A half-century later, America's second sexual revolution
again attempted to level the playing field, this time with women adopting the more permissive sexuality
that men had long enjoyed. Id. at 73. The law, too, has generally treated women's and men's sexuality
differently. Until recently statutory rape was a crime that could only be committed against a female
victim; adolescent male chastity was not protected. See, e.g., Michelle Oberman, Turning Girls into
Women: Re-Evaluating Modern Statutory Rape Law, 8 DEPAUL J. HEALTH CARE L. 109, 120 (2004).
Thus, when proponents of abstinence-only sex education hearken back to "traditional" values that our
society supposedly endorsed at one time, they ignore that these values only existed with regard to
women; men have never been expected to remain chaste until marriage.
205. Lawrence B. Finer, Trends in PremaritalSex in the United States, 1954-2003, 122 PUB.
HEALTH REP. 73, 73-74 (2007).
206. Id. at 73.
207. Jones, supra note 19, at 1091.
208. Finer, supra note 205, at 74.
209. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Abortion and Rights of Terror Suspects Top Court
Issues, Aug. 3, 2005, http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DoclD=91. Notably, when broken down by
religion, secular respondents were most in favor of birth control being taught in the classroom (93%)
and white evangelicals were least in favor (66%). Id.
[Vol. 19:495
cover the use and obtaining of other forms of contraception.2 10 Various other
studies corroborate these findings. 211 A majority of Americans believe that
there is nothing wrong with premarital sex, an even greater majority want their
children to learn about sexuality and contraception in school, and nearly all
Americans engage in premarital sex. Not only is it a discrete minority of
Americans whose views align with those promoted by abstinence education, it
is a religious minority that created and promoted an education policy that
conforms to their particular religious views.
1. Individual CurriculaContinue To Promote Religion
As noted in Part 1I, many individual curricula retain their religious
teachings even after removing explicit references to Jesus, Christianity, or God.
2 12
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,
the intelligent design textbook in
213
written as a creationist text.
been
originally
had
use, Of Pandasand People,
After the Supreme Court decided Edwards v. Aguillard, the authors of the
textbook re-phrased the references to creationism and God to make them
214
appear less religiously based. It was relevant to the court that the textbook in
question, as well as the intelligent design movement in general, had its roots in
the religious creationist movement. Abstinence-only curricula have gone
through a similar sanitization process. Curricula that used to be explicitly
religious have now removed direct references to God, Jesus, and
Christianity. 215 The Sex Respect program is the abstinence movement's Of
Pandas and People. Sex Respect, written by Coleen Mast, is simply a reworking of her Love & Life curriculum with the overtly religious references
216
removed.
Despite toning down the religious content in the curriculum, the
Sex Respect website remains replete with religious messages-advertisements
for Catholic radio stations, citations to scripture, and links to the overtly
religious Love & Life series.2 17 Like the intelligent design movement, the
abstinence education movement has responded to critiques of its religious
nature by obscuring the religion that it promotes. Yet, like the intelligent design
210. KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION, SEX EDUCATION IN AMERICA 4 (2000), available at
http://www.kff.org/ youthhivstds/3048-index.cfm.
211. See, e.g., FINE & WEIS, supra note 167, at 57; Hickman-Brown Research, Inc., Public Opinion
Research Survey, Question 7 (Mar. 1999), availableat http://www.siecus.org/parent/pare0003.html.
212. 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005).
213. See Expert Witness Report of Barbara Forrest, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist., 400 F.
Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005)(No. 4:04-CV-02688), 2005 WL 3415853; see also BARBARA FORREST,
SUPPLEMENT TO EXPERT WITNESS REPORT: KITZMILLER V. DOVER AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT (2005),
http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/ experts/Forrest-supplemental report.pdf.
214. Kitzmiller, 400 F. Supp. 2d at 721.
215. See supra Section II.B.
216. Simson & Sussman, supra note 16, at 284.
217. Sex Respect, Abstinence Education Program for Teens, http://www.sexrespect.com (last
visited Oct. 17, 2007).
2008]
textbooks, the abstinence-only curricula remain firmly connected to their
religious roots.
2. ExtramaritalAbstinence Is Itself a Religious Value
The First Amendment not only protects against the privileging of one
religion over another, but it also protects against a preference for religion in
general over secular beliefs or values. 2 18 Abstinence-only education promotes a
specific religious view of sexuality and marriage by teaching that sex is only
acceptable within the confines of a lifelong, heterosexual, monogamous
marriage. 219 While marriage and the regulation of sexuality are important
elements of many religions, the particular view of human sexuality that
abstinence education promotes is not supported by all religions, much less by
secular society.
The views of members of the Christian Right on sexuality are fairly clear
-the Bible prohibits any sex outside of marriage, including homosexual sex,
but permits and perhaps even celebrates it within marriage. 22 Supporting
marriage and the "traditional family" (presumably meaning a married
heterosexual couple and their biological children) has been one of the key
rallying points for the Christian Right.221 Indeed, fear of the destruction of the
222
traditional family is often raised in debates on any number of political issues.
218. See supra note 24 and accompanying text.
219. Title V, which defines the components of abstinence-only education, states that "a mutually
faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual
activity." 42 U.S.C. § 710(b)(2) (2003). Choosing the Best teaches "the expected standard for sexual
activity is within the context of a mutually monogamous marriage relationship between a man and
woman," and that "healthy human sexuality involves enduring fidelity, love and commitment."
CHOOSING THE BEST, How CHOOSING THE BEST CURRICULA MEETS 2006 CBAE THEMES (2006),
available at http://www.choosingthebest.org/docs/CTB_2006_CBAEThemes.pdf.
This program
explicitly states that marriage involves one man and one woman, and implies that divorce is
unacceptable by emphasizing "enduring fidelity" and "commitment." The guidelines for CBAE grant
proposals also emphasize monogamy and life-long marriages, noting that students should be taught "the
physical and emotional benefits that they may find by having one lifelong sexual partner within
marriage." U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUM. SERVS., FY 2006 PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT, supra note
128. Joe S. Mcllhaney Jr., abstinence-only sex education advocate and founder of The Medical Institute,
is more blunt in stating the message of abstinence-only programs: "It is time for an honest and openminded look at a new sexual revolution: abstinence until a committed, lifelong, mutually monogamous
relationship. Most people call it marriage." McIlhaney, supra note 97, at 132-33.
220. See, e.g., TIM LAHAYE & BEVERLY LAHAYE, THE ACT OF MARRIAGE 14-21 (1976)
(discussing Bible passages relating to sex and marriage in a self-help guide to Christian marriage).
221. As one author sees it:
If there is anything genuinely 'new' about the current right wing in the United States, it is its
tendency to locate sexual, reproductive, and family issues at the center of its political
program .... The politics of the family, sexuality, and reproduction ... became a primary
vehicle through which right-wing politicians achieved their ascent to state power in the late
1970s and the 1980 elections.
Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Antiabortion, Antifeminism, and the Rise of the New Right, in THE NEW
CHRISTIAN RIGHT 394, 395 (Melvin 1. Urofsky & Martha May eds., 1996).
222. MARTIN, supra note 8, at 177-78 (discussing the Christian Right's pro-family politics in the
late 1970s, which included anti-abortion, anti-ERA, anti-pomography, and anti-gay rights elements).
[Vol. 19:495
Tim LaHaye, minister, author, and founder of the American Coalition for
Traditional Values, once argued that secular humanists are "anti-God, antimoral, anti-self-restraint, and anti-American" and are "determined to destroy
'
the family."223
Although the Christian Right's pro-family movement's
overarching goal is to return American society to a patriarchal, religious,
nuclear family structure, 224 a large focus of the movement has been on
sexuality, not only in the debates over sex education, but also in drives to rid
the media .- 22627
of sexual content, 225 campaigns against abortion and
contraception,
and the movement against gay rights. 227 A driving ideology of
the Christian right is thus that sex has a very specific relationship to the
traditional family and should not occur outside of heterosexual marriage.
Abstinence-only education teaches that sex can properly occur only
between a man and a woman within the confines of marriage; it condemns
homosexual sex of any kind, since gays and lesbians currently can marry in
only one state. The government website dedicated to CBAE proposals makes
clear that only heterosexual sex is permissible:
Throughout the entire curriculum, the term 'marriage' must be defined
as 'only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband
and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the228
opposite
sex who is a husband or a wife' (consistent with Federal law).
While all federally funded abstinence programs must condemn sex outside
of marriage, which includes almost all homosexual sex, the CBAE
223. Michael Lienesch, Family in The New ChristianRight, in THE NEW CHRISTIAN RIGHT, supra
note 221, at 326.
224. Leaders of the Christian Right urge men to take the lead in their relationships and urge women
to submit to their husbands. See generally id. at 297-321. Although it is beyond the scope of this
Comment to fully explore this issue, abstinence-only education supports ideas of gender difference and
gender roles that are accepted as fact in much of the pro-family movement. For example, many curricula
teach students that men care about sex while women care about emotions and love. See, e.g., COLEEN
KELLY MAST, SEX RESPECT, TEACHER'S MANUAL 20 (2001) ("Testosterone, a male hormone, leads
men to interest in the desire for sexual release and pleasure . . . The estrogen in females tends to focus
them primarily on nurturing, warmth, closeness and security."); WAIT TRAINING, WAIT TRAINING 199
(2d ed. 2003) ("Women will give sex to get love, while men will give love to get sex."). Some curricula
also teach that men and women should have different roles within the family. See, e.g., MAST, supra
note 75, at 4 (asking students to identify which parent is more likely to do certain household tasks,
including mowing the lawn, doing laundry, and decorating the house).
225. Groups like Morality in Media, Parents' Music Resource Center, and the American Family
Association have been formed to protest "indecency in media." James Davison Hunter, Media and the
Arts, in THE NEW CHRISTIAN RIGHT, supra note 221, at 258. Tim LaHaye has blamed pornography for
"two-thirds of sexual problems in marriage today." Lienesch, supra note 223, at 328.
226. See Petchesky, supra note 221, for a discussion of the religious roots of the "right to life"
movement.
227. Christian Right leaders like James Robison, Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell, and Tim LaHaye
have condemned homosexuality as against God, nature, and the Bible, using the threat of homosexuality
harming children as a way to draw support for their cause. Lienesch, supra note 223, at 328-29; see also
JEAN HARDISTY, MOBILIZING
RESENTMENT
100 (1999)
(discussing Bryant's Protect America's
Children organization and her involvement in the 1978 "California Defend Our Children Initiative").
228. U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., ADMIN. FOR CHILDREN & FAMILIES, FAMILY &
YOUTH SERVS. BUREAU, GUIDANCE REGARDING CURRICULUM CONTENT 2007, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/
programs/fysb/content/abstinence/cbaeguidance.htm.
2008]
requirements explicitly emphasize that only heterosexual unions are to be
promoted in abstinence education. Abstinence-only education, in general, does
not cover homosexuality, but begins from the assumption that all sex is
heterosexual. 229 Condemnation of homosexuality, however, is a religious issue,
and one that is hotly contested among many major religions today. 23 The
Supreme Court has stated that moral condemnation of homosexual behavior is
a product of religious belief,231 and it is this same religious view of human
sexuality that abstinence education promotes by condemning sex outside of
heterosexual marriage.
In addition, marriage, which the abstinence-only programs promote to the
exclusion of all other forms of sexual partnership, is itself inextricably tied to
religion in the United States. 232 And yet today, religions have widely varying
views on what constitutes marriage. As one scholar notes, "Religious notions of
'marriage' vary widely and depend both upon the creed of the religious
institution and upon particular adherents ....[M]odern permutations of
'religious marriage' range from two-party marriage (including same-sex
marriage) ....to polygamy. ' 233 In particular, abstinence education emphasizes
life-long, monogamous marriages, implicitly condemning divorce and
polygamy, elements of marriage that other religions condone. Historically,
nearly all of the major world religions except for Christianity allowed
229. SIECUS, LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDERED YOUTH ISSUES 3 (2001), available at
http://www.siecus.org/pubs/fact/FS-lgbt__youth issues.pdf; see also Danielle LeClair, Comment, Let's
Talk About Sex Honestly: Why Federal Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education Programs
DiscriminateAgainst Girls, Are Bad Public Policy, and Should Be Overturned, 21 WIS. WOMEN'S L.J.
291, 308 (2006) (quoting Sex Respect: "'Homosexual activity involves an especially high risk for AIDS
infection [because] body openings are used in ways for which they are not designed. During such
unnatural behaviors, additional damage is done to blood vessels and other body parts."'). While Sex
Respect has edited this section, it still refers to anal intercourse as an "unnatural behavior" and an
"unnatural act." MAST, supra note 75, at 63.
230. See, e.g., Brief of the Alliance of Baptists et al. as Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioners,
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) (No. 02-102), 2003 WL 152331, at *9-* 11 (2003) (listing
numerous religions that accept homosexuality and support the rights of gays and lesbians, and arguing
that, "[d]espite this diversity of religious opinion, the Texas court invoked the moral and religious views
of certain faiths, in contravention of the principle that '[g]ovemment in our democracy, state and
national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, and practice."' (quoting Epperson v.
Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 103-04 (1968))).
231. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 571 (2003).
232. See Sherryl E. Michaelson, Religion and Morality Legislation: A Reexamination of
Establishment Clause Analysis, 59 N.Y.U. L. REv. 301, 307-08 (1984) ("More troubling from a first
amendment viewpoint is the courts' explicit reliance upon a certain strain of Judeo-Christian dogma to
support their chosen definition of marriage. Virtually without exception, the courts cite Scripture and
canon law in support of their position. It is beyond dispute that the American legal concept of marriage
derives historically from the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church."); see also Justin T. Wilson,
Preservationism,or the Elephant in the Room: How Opponents of Same-Sex MarriageDeceive Us into
Establishing Religion, 14 DUKE J.GENDER L. & POL'Y 561, 579 (2007) ("American society and
governments have historically-and in the past few years, deliberately-conflated civil marriage with
religious marriage.").
233. Wilson, supra note 232, at580.
Yale Joumal of Law and Feminism
[Vol. 19:495
2 34
polygamy; monogamy was an innovation of Christianity, not the norm.
Christianity again differed from other major world religions such as Judaism
and Islam in its prohibition of divorce. 235 When abstinence education programs
promote a lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual view of marriage, they ignore
that most religious traditions do not support these specific requirements for
marriage.
While all religions (as well as all secular cultures and societies) regulate
sexual conduct in various ways-from prohibitions against incest, to
prohibitions against homosexual conduct, to prohibitions on having sex during
certain times of the year-there is no uniformity as to how they do so. Yet all
federally-funded abstinence-only education classes have to conform their
message to Title V's very specific and restrictive view of when sex is
permissible. Under Lemon's second prong, the government cannot promote this
idea that sex should only be had in the context of lifelong, monogamous,
heterosexual marriages, because this position promotes a conservative Christian
view of human sexuality. When abstinence-only education classes are
implemented in public schools, the government is not only endorsing these
values, but is also placing its coercive authority behind viewpoints derived
from Christianity and the Christian Right that students are taught as the only
acceptable beliefs regarding human sexuality and marriage. Taken together,
abstinence-only education fails both of the main prongs of the Lemon test-and
consequently the other variations of the test that the Court has put forth-and is
thus unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
CONCLUSION
While some abstinence-only education programs have been held
unconstitutional because of their overtly religious messages, the religious
element of abstinence education goes far beyond individual programs. The
legislation granting funding to abstinence education itself impermissibly
endorses a religious view of sexuality, and thus violates the Establishment
Clause. The absence of a secular purpose, the particularity of the view of
permissible sex promoted, and the clear historical ties between the abstinence
education movement and the Christian Right demonstrate that the federal
government is endorsing a religious view of sexuality through its legislation.
Even if morality-based legislation could be constitutionally valid despite its
failure to achieve any of its secular goals, when a law lacks a secular goal and
is coupled with a religious message, that law is unconstitutional.
234. See, e.g., GEOFFREY PARRINDER, SEXUAL MORALITY IN THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS 55, 193
(1996) (discussing polygamy in Buddhism and Judaism).
235. See Luke 16:18 (New International Version) ("Anyone who divorces his wife and marries
another woman commits adultery against her."); see also Mark 10:11; Alatthew 5:32.
2008]
Abstinence education is not the only area in which the Christian Right has
been working to inject certain religious values into politics and law. Its
emphasis on supporting the traditional family extends beyond ideas of when
and with whom sex is appropriate, into other areas where science and religious
conviction clash, such as stem cell research, abortion, and contraception. On all
of these fronts, religious groups have pushed an agenda that privileges religious
teachings over scientific evidence-an agenda the government has adopted
wholeheartedly. At a congressional hearing in July 2007, three former Surgeons
General testified that presidential administrations since the 1980s have blocked,
undermined, or silenced reports or statements based on scientific evidence that
conflicts with the conservative "family values" agenda the Christian Right has
put forth. 236 Yet nowhere is the government's embrace of religious teachings
more evident than in the abstinence-education context, where the President and
Congress continue to increase federal funding for the promotion of this
message. Attacking abstinence-only education offers a clear way to stem the
growing religiosity of the American government. Congress must eliminate
funding to abstinence-only programs, and remove itself from the business of
promoting religion in the public schools. In the interim, courts should follow
the precedent they have laid down in the intelligent design cases and find
abstinence education programs that promote religious views of sexuality
unconstitutional.
236. Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona stated:
In my opinion, there's a political driver, there's preconceived political agendas that are
already there that sometimes fly in the face of good science, and therefore politicians don't
want people like the three surgeon generals here to speak out honestly on the science because
it's going to complicate their life in trying to move a certain agenda. But there are also
ideological and theological drivers in abstinence, in abortion, in Plan B, in stem cells, that
drive a particular theological construct that leads somebody to a policy.
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, supra note 180.

Unconstitutional Entanglements

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